A goodwill tour is a tour by someone or something famous to a series of places, with the purpose of expressing benevolent interest or concern for a group of people or a region, improving or maintaining a relationship between parties, and exhibiting the item or person to places visited. Goodwill tours are meant to be friendly; however, in some cases, they may be intimidating to the people or the government at the place visited. At the same time, a visit by a goodwill tour might be used as a way of "reminding" the place and government visited of a friendship previously established or assumed.

Examples of the term

* A goodwill tour of the

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western Europe, Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa ...

by ships of the

U.S. Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage o ...

. * A goodwill tour by the Graf Zeppelin. * A goodwill tour of the Commonwealths by the monarch. * A goodwill tour of

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sout ...

by the

Pope The pope ( la, papa, from el, πάππας, translit=pappas, 'father'), also known as supreme pontiff ( or ), Roman pontiff () or sovereign pontiff, is the bishop of Rome (or historically the patriarch of Rome), head of the worldwide Cathol ...

. * A goodwill tour of the United States by

James Monroe James Monroe ( ; April 28, 1758July 4, 1831) was an American statesman, lawyer, diplomat, and Founding Father who served as the fifth president of the United States from 1817 to 1825. A member of the Democratic-Republican Party, Monroe was ...

Notable goodwill tours

* The Latin America goodwill tour by President-elect Herbert Hoover in November–December 1928. * The goodwill tour by the USS ''Maine'' (ACR-1) to Havana harbor. * The goodwill tour to Japan by Admiral Perry in 1852. * The goodwill tour to Japan by the

San Francisco Seals (baseball) The San Francisco Seals were a minor league baseball team in San Francisco, California, that played in the Pacific Coast League from 1903 until 1957 before transferring to Phoenix, Arizona. The organization was named for the abundant Californi ...

in 1949. * Jacqueline Kennedy's 1962 goodwill tour of India and Pakistan * The worldwide GIANTSTEP-APOLLO 11 Presidential Goodwill Tour by the Apollo 11 astronauts in 1969.

External links

Laura Bush visits Middle East in goodwill tour

"Dance Troupe From Israel Wraps Up Goodwill Tour of America"

Ceremonies Naval ceremonies Diplomacy {{politics-stub